rupert murdoch was just as right wing then as he is now. but his right-wing tabloid "the sun," which is as dominant in british tabloid media as fox news is anywhere cable news, tony blair convinced the conservative rupert murdoch to have the conservative "sun" tabloid get behind the blair candidacy. this right-wing paper, "the sun," endorsed the labour party and tony blair. so after nearly two decades of the labour party in exile, tony blair got rupert murdoch's backing. that helped him get elected prime minister. labour got to be in charge of briblt for the next decade. george w. bush got a new poodle. and we all got the iraq war. whatever you think of what tony blair did with his time in power, his rise to power was skilled, very skilled. and that skill was manifest in part with his triumph in the murdoch primary. josh marshall at the website talking points memos has been writing about this. he wrote about it this past summer and again today. the idea of the murdoch primary everybody talked about it and it's the real thing. you have to wi